Tuesday, February 21, 2017

I get a constant barrage of flight “deals,” but I never seem to be able to work out the logistics. The "special" $55 flight ends up costing $355 by the time I get the dates and times entered.

This time, however, it did work out and we got an
amazingly cheap price on direct flights to Vegas, so I snapped ‘em up and we
headed west.

While both of us have been to Vegas before, we’d never been
there together and we were looking forward to spending a few days away without
thinking about work or dog walking or family obligations. We brought a few
bucks for gambling, although Vince isn’t much of a gambler and I don’t do
anything but play on the penny slot machines.

Before leaving, I also purchased tickets for a couple shows –
the Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil. I’d never seen either before and couldn’t
wait for a little Las Vegas entertainment.

Because our flights were so reasonable, and I booked our hotel
at the same time, I got a price break on that as well. So we stayed at the
Bellagio. You know, the one with the dancing fountains?

See the building to the left? We were over there...

When we checked in, the clerk tried to bump us. For a mere $30 a
day extra, we could stay in a room that overlooked the fountains. Vince, being
the cheap, er…more frug…er…more “economically-minded” spouse between the two of
us said no. He then amended his answer to say, “Well, whatever she wants.” But,
somewhat to his surprise, I also said no. I was not interested in spending all of
our slot machine gambling money on a view in a room we weren’t planning to
spend a lot of time in.

The clerk, thinking he was doing us a favor, said he’d give us
the room anyway without the bump in price.

Little did we know, it was a room overlooking a parking lot. Big
whoop. Although off to our left we could
see the fountains. We were in one of the side buildings. I didn’t even know
there were side buildings at the Bellagio. And, yeah, it goes without saying
that the Bellagio hotel is H-U-G-E!

So, while we did enjoy watching the dancing fountains (and listening
to the music play concurrently on the television in our room), I will also say it’s
a good thing we weren’t paying an extra 30 bucks a night for the room. Because
our main view was of the parking lot. Guess Vince isn’t the only cheap…er…frug…er, “economically-minded”
partner!

In hindsight, I sort of wish we had stayed in a smaller hotel.
Although “small” hotels in Vegas aren’t that easy to find.

We packed walking shoes since we knew we’d do a lot of walking,
but we neglected to factor in the half mile walk just to get from our room to
the hotel lobby. One day, according to our handy dandy smart watches, we
learned we’d walked over seven miles. And that wasn’t even the day we walked
the Strip.

That’s a whole lotta walkin’, my friends.

One afternoon, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel intending
to go quickly to our room to drop off some purchases, change for dinner and
then head back out. We rode the elevator to the 11th floor and
walked around the corner to head to our room. Except the numbers were
incorrect. Yes, we were on the 11th floor of the Bellagio Hotel –
but in the wrongbuilding! We had to go back down the elevator, walk across the
casino to the lobby, past that and the myriad of shops and down another hall to
our correct building.

Yeesh.

By the time we finally reached our room, I was so tired, I
needed a nap. And a foot rub. Neither
was in the offering, however, and we had to head back down to the lobby to
catch our Uber to make our dinner reservations. If we hadn’t already purchased
tickets to the show later, I would’ve bagged the whole thing and stayed in our
room and ordered incredibly overpriced room service.

On our last full day in Vegas, we walked along the Strip doing
some sightseeing and a little shopping. We made the requisite stop at the
M&M store with its four floors filled with all manner of things M&M. On
the way back toward the Bellagio, we passed scantily clad girls in provocative outfits
hoping to part tourists with their money for a “fun” picture to bring back
home. We declined many an offer for things I didn’t even want to know about,
although Vince somehow ended up with a pocket full of cards with even more
scantily clad girls on them.

And in between picking up the obligatory Las Vegas T-shirt for
Vince and grabbing a sandwich before the 7pm show for the Blue Man Group, we
got tattoos.

What?

Okay, so not really. But we DID get temporary henna tattoos.

Even the mere consideration of entering a tattoo parlor is
something so outlandish that nobody who knows either Vince or me would believe
it. I’ve never been a big fan of tattoos and Vince has been quite vocal in his
opposition to them.

But his son, the Marine, recently got a big tattoo on his chest
and Vince wasn’t too happy about it. Not that he could do anything about it. I
mean, it was decidedly not a temporary henna tattoo. And anyone old enough to
defend our country is old enough to decide what he wants inked on his body.

But as we were passing the tattoo parlor, we decided it would be
sooo funny if Vince got a temporary tattoo and sent a photo of it to his son. Wouldn’t that just be hilarious, we thought.

And we hadn’t even been drinking, so we couldn’t use total
inebriation as our defense.

Nevertheless, in we walked to the first tattoo parlor I’ve ever entered.
We talked with the heavily pierced, tatted, multi-hued haired girl behind the
desk.

I thought it would be funny if Vince got the Chinese symbol for “Regret”
as his temporary tattoo. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be obvious that it was
tongue-in-cheek and it would lose something in the translation.

And then, as we were looking at the choices on the wall, somehow
or other, I got roped into getting one also. How did that happen?

Eventually, we decided to get the other’s name on the inside of
our arms. Since Vince calls me “My Janie” and I call him “My Vince” that’s what
we decided on. After all, we knew these would last only about three weeks and
there would be no need to regret the decision.

On the other hand, once the tattoo artist was done, we did have a couple regrets. One was that
even though we were supposed to let the henna dry for only about a half hour
(and we allowed an hour to be safe) both our tattoos smeared. Makes it hard to convince anyone that a tattoo with smeary ink is real.

The second regret is that it was $25 a pop for each of those
tattoos. You know how many slot machines I could’ve hit with 50 bucks?!

But anyway.

We’ve only been back about two weeks and there is no trace of
henna on the inside of my arm, and I’m okay with that. Every time I caught a
glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, I thought my arm was dirty and needed
to be washed.

So I’m guessing I won’t be walking into a tattoo parlor for a
real tattoo anytime soon. But, in the
end, we had fun and had a Vegas story to tell afterwards.

So that was just a little bit about our trip to Las Vegas. My review of the shows we saw – and the scads of money I won
(ha!) – will have to wait for another blog.

About Me

People have compared my writing style to Dave Barry or the late Erma Bombeck, which I find flattering because I admire their writing style. I want people who read my stuff to feel like I'm sitting in the room talking with them and sharing stories and life observations.

Over the years I've been told I should write "for real." Friends and colleagues have suggested I take a stab at writing children's books or newspaper or magazine articles. I've even submitted an article or ten. No one, however, has suggested how I should pay for the roof over my head while I'm waiting to be discovered. So I've gotten 'regular' jobs where I occasionally get to work out my left brain, which has been rewarding.

And then I discovered blogging. Does blogging count as writing? We'll see. So far I'm enjoying the process.